I keep telling myself I won't post any new long chapter stories until I finish some of my others (especially my first story); but I just love the rush of posting new stories, not to mention there aren't many stories for this series (probably because they just finished the first season). I came up with this midseason right before I started my other Gotham story 'Everybody Hurts' but knew that one wasn't going to be as long so I posted and finished that one first. I try to keep my stories cannon with the shows, but it's harder to do that with a series that is still going on.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Gotham, Batman, or anything related to the DC Comics Universe.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are appriciated.
Mama Cat
Chapter 1: Lost and Found
Since the incident where her appraiser sold her out to a group of assassins who were out for her blood, Selina Kyle went back to pickpocketing on the streets for cash. She figured it was safer to avoid any unnecessary interaction with anyone who might sell her out for a quick buck; at least while there was a price on her head.
Selina only sold stolen merchandise to pawn to get by when the streets were slow. After the night of the Wayne's death, Gothamites became more cautious about coming out at night. Times were tough for many businesses in Gotham since. Downtown tourism slowed down for awhile and criminal activity temporarily spiked due to the lost revenue resulting in lost jobs. Eventually, business slowly started to pick back up in downtown Gotham after the mayor's newest attempt at increasing revenue in the rapidly declining neighborhood in Gotham; The Cash Cow Casino.
Truth be told, the young thief preferred pickpocketing to pawning. It was less of a hassle and more of an adrenaline rush. After all, Selina got the nickname 'Cat' due to her quick cat-like reflexes and the sly precision she learned from pickpocketing on the streets; in addition to her mini feline obsession.
It was late Friday night, almost midnight, on a street known to locals as 'Debauchery Row'. Cat was staking out the casino's back alley, waiting for drunkards to stumble out of the back exit with their winnings spilling out of their pockets.
Drunks were easy targets for Cat. Most of her targets where single men in their mid to late 20's who usually they got kicked out of bars and casinos for harassing the female staff and patrons alike. Any friends they did have who are still somewhat coherent often denied being associated with them to avoid being kicked out as well.
While they were busy puking their guts out, she would slip the wallets out of their pockets to take their winnings and return said wallet before it was missed. Most of them were so intoxicated that they didn't even remember winning and were lucky enough to find their ways home.
Cat had been waiting in the alley behind The Cash Cow for less than 10 minutes before she saw a possible target. She had been staking out behind the casino on weekends for the past 3 weeks and noticed a pattern: hardly anyone was really kicked out before 11. And the ones that were usually got kicked out because they owed too much to the house and didn't know when to stop gambling, not worth the effort.
Selina hid behind a dumpster in the alley when she heard the door opening. The bouncer was throwing this particular man out for groping several waitresses and admitting to one of them that he had been counting cards. The offender hit his head against the brick wall belonging to the bistro across the alley and landed on the ground on his side.
Selina proceeded with caution as she approached the unconscious man. She used a rigged wire coat hanger she kept wrapped around her belt to fish the wallet out of his pants pockets but found nothing. He must have hid his wallet from the bouncers to keep his winnings. She looked in his coat and found an internal lapel pocket which contained the man's wallet. Once retrieved, Selina opened his wallet to count the contents.
The wallet contained $1,318. She left the $18 and took the rest. She figured it would be less suspicious if there was still a little bit of money left, last thing she needs is for word to spread about the casino alley pickpocket and potentially ruin her whole operation by getting police or worst, other street thieves, involved. She didn't mind occasionally sharing some of her findings with the other street kids, but she rarely gave leads because of how fast word spreads underground.
As Selina tried to put the wallet back into the unconscious man's pocket, she noticed he wasn't moving. Selina Kyle was a lot of things; but, heartless she was not. She slowly inched closer to him to get a closer look.
The unconscious man had a bruised cut to the left of his forehead, a fat lip, and a busted up nose from hitting the wall. She noticed his nose and cheeks were bright red (which she attributed to the booze she smelled on his breath) and the rest of his face that wasn't bruised was pale. Foam was starting to form at the corner of his mouth before he let out a huge cough.
Cat's swift reflexes kicked in and she hid behind a fire escape stairwell in the alley. The man quickly turned over onto his hands and knees to throw up. He slowly crawled his way to the main sidewalk before he heard what he assumed were police sirens down the street that spooked him enough for him to get up and run in the direction away from the sirens.
Shortly after the formerly unconscious man left and the sirens that turned out to be an ambulance on its way to the hospital 3 blocks down passed by, Selina left her hiding spot and started to leave the Alley.
As the sound of the sirens started to die out, Cat heard an odd sound coming from one of the dumpsters. The muffled echo made it difficult to identify the sound. Selina thought it might have been a stray that was trapped in the dumpster while trying to look for warmth. The cat enthusiast opened the lid on the dumpster to rescue the occupant. What she discovered inside would change her life forever.
Meanwhile…
On the outskirts of Gotham, a young billionaire orphan tossed and turned in his bed; but this wasn't anything new. Since the death of his parents, the young Bruce Wayne spent many restless nights reliving the event over and over again in his head, often in his sleep.
The lad made a promise to himself in memory of his parents that he will find who killed them and make sure they could never hurt anyone else. He spent most of his nights going over evidence trying to find new leads, sometimes to ease his mind about getting closure; but really to avoid the nightmares that replayed that faithful night in Crime Alley.
The boy's butler, Alfred, understood the boy needed sometime to process things, but thought the lad's obsession was getting out of hand. Bruce had always been mature for his age; but now he seemed to be pushing himself away even more from childhood, what was left of Master Bruce's childhood died the same night his parents did. Though he was luckier than most of the children in Gotham without parents, many of whom were living in the streets, he was scarred by witnessing his parent's death and fearing his own life was in danger. The whole event drove Bruce to want to learn everything he can about self-defense, mystery solving, and overcoming his fears.
The butler often insisted that his charge take a break from the detective work, that's when Bruce decided to work on controlling his fears. Lately the young billionaire took to watching horror movies and reading scary stories, though he had to do it on the sly because Alfred didn't approve of the boy desensitizing himself.
On that particular night, he fell asleep in the middle of reading Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'. Bruce always had a fear of vampires, but he was even more afraid of bats. They were creatures of the night that stalked their pray and were known for carrying horrible diseases, such as rabies. Bruce saw the creatures as ruthless as the man who killed his parents, picking on prey and draining the life out of them with no mercy. The young heir had nightmares about bats and vampires since sneaking out of his room late one night to watch Nosferatu, who was not only a vampire but looked like a giant human/bat mutant.
But even though he was afraid of bats, part of Bruce was fascinated by them as well. He researched them, thinking that understanding how they work might help him to concur his fears. He found that the flying mammals mostly ate bugs; some species only ate fruits and other plants. Only vampire bats really drank the blood from living animals and rarely (if ever) drank human blood. Though the statistics gave him peace of mind, he still couldn't help but feel anxious when confronted with the creatures of the night.
Tonight Bruce was having the usual nightmare of his parents' death, but this time it was different. He noticed more details of the gunman. At first the scared boy just saw the dark shadow of the man in a heavy coat with a covered face. But after the incognito figure shot his parents, Bruce noticed the gunman wasn't leaving. Instead the shooter stood there, laughing at the crying boy's misery as he kneeled by his parents in a pool of their blood. The laugh started off as a deep throaty chuckle and gradually changed to a higher pitch. Bruce stared at the heartless monster when he noticed a pair of red eyes staring back at him. He then noticed as the pitch of his laugher turned into a sharp squeals, more red eyes appeared in the shadows of the disguise. A colony of bats erupted from the trench coat and began to swarm the frightened boy. As the biggest bat stared Bruce in the face with an evil grin and beady blood red eyes, the bat lunged towards Bruce's neck.
At that moment, Bruce woke up in a cold sweat; hyperventilating in fear as he felt his neck to make sure he wasn't really bitten. Bruce looked at the clock to see it was just after 4 AM, He had only been asleep for a few hours.
At this point, the boy realized he wasn't going to desensitize this fear by just reading about them. If Bruce really wanted to get rid of this fear, he needed to tackle it head on.